On Saturday Oct. 9, hip-hop pioneer Chuck D of Public Enemy and thrash metal giants Anthrax reunited at New York Comic Con to celebrate 30 years since the release of their famed collaborative effort, “Bring the Noise.” The song was written and recorded in 1987 by Public Enemy for the “Less Than Zero” film soundtrack. Four years later, the Queens thrashers would cover the song, sampling Chuck D’s original vocals, and shifting the course of popular music by blurring the boundaries that separated the worlds of metal and hip-hop.
The acts toured together that year and audiences on opposite ends of the musical spectrum suddenly found themselves in the same room, singing the same songs. The collaboration helped to erase the lines that separated metal from rap as an art form, ushering in a new era of musical aggression.
The 2021 reunion was hosted by Z2 Comics, a company that meshes the mediums of comic books and music by releasing stories based around musical groups, sometimes along with companion albums. They have released graphic novels based on albums such as The Doors “Morrison Hotel,“ and Anthrax’s “Among the Living.”
At the NYC panel, the members discussed how they all found common ground in comics and superheroes, despite coming from different backgrounds, and how their collaborative efforts helped change the course of contemporary music. While this wasn’t the first time rock & hip-hop had been mixed together — Run-DMC and Aerosmith put out a version of “Walk This Way” in 1986 — the sound was radically different this time around. Anthrax and Public Enemy, despite performing different genres of music, were both particularly aggressive in their stylistic delivery, so much so that everyone on the table agreed: it just made sense…
The story supposedly begins with Chuck D eyeing a picture of Anthrax in the mid-80’s. “I saw [Ian] in front of 75,000 people with a guitar, wearing a Public Enemy shirt,” Chuck D recalled. In response, Chuck D would mention Anthrax by name in the lyrics to “Bring the Noise,” with the line, “wax is for Anthrax, still it can rock bells.”
“I said fuck it, all the music is the same, the division in the music and rap and rock… that’s what the song ‘Bring the Noise’ was about,” Chuck D told the audience.
“They fucking named checked us,” Ian reflected, “my head was exploding.”
It would be 4 years before Anthrax would cover the song, using samples from Chuck D’s original vocal track. The track appeared on Public Enemy’s “Apocalypse 91’” and Anthrax’s “Attack of the Killer B’s,” both released in 1991 and the two groups found themselves on a cross country trek together.
“It was something that was literally just meant to be,” Ian commented.
“We were taught by RUN DMC on how to kick fucking ass” Chuck D added, “…but then we had to go college and college was Anthrax.”
Chuck D explained to the audience how the speed and power present in Anthrax’s delivery inspired his approach to music. “These men taught us…that every ounce of everything you got, has got to be spilled on the stage,” he added.
The members reminisced about their time touring together in 1991. It wasn’t always easy, they recalled, but their audiences began to mesh as time went on. The collaboration sparked a surge of popular rap-metal groups in the 1990’s, for better or for worse.
Still, the message behind their collaboration is important: we must keep the boundaries that separate us down. By removing the lines that separated metal and hip-hop, Public Enemy and Anthrax also removed the lines that separated audiences from completely different cultural backgrounds. We must continue to “Bring the Noise” for years to come.
Watch the whole panel here: https://www.findthemetaverse.com/comics/nycc-2021-z2-comics-presents-bring-the-noise-chuck-d-and-anthrax
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